Edward Lee - Ghouls

Her green eyelids slivered. She took the card, stiffening at the sight of his face. “You’re the one out-processing today?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” she said. Her cleavage blared; he envisioned nipples with the circumference of coffee cups. As she began scribbling in a green log book, more signs harassed him. NO SMOKING PLEASE, MEDICATION BY APPOINTMENT ONLY, ARMED ESCORTS MUST SIGN IN WEAPON SERIAL NUMBERS HERE. Facing him was a Day-Glo poster which read GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE, and under it a trade calendar advertising McNeil anti-depressants. The contradiction was so outrageous he could’ve laughed.

“You can wait in the office,” the receptionist said. Her breasts rose slightly, like balloons, when she handed back the card. “Second door on the right. Dr. Herman will be with you shortly.”

The office was dark and cramped and vaultlike. It had no windows. One painting adorned the front wall, a perverse swirl of dark colors, some patient’s OT project, no doubt; John had seen them everywhere, and even painted a few himself. There was no couch here; he’d been in dozens of psychiatrists’ offices over the years, but never had he seen a proverbial couch. An industrial-gray desk sat hugely off to one corner; heaps of books and papers threatened to overrun its top. The desk was a show-place for psycho-paraphernalia. A dark blue paperweight shaped like a Stelazine pill; a haloperidol thermometer; pens and pencil cups bearing names of numerous trade drugs; a flier: What every doctor should know about extrapyramidity; a plastic Xanax calendar; and a blotter advertising Mellaril. In one corner stood a coat stand draped with white lab coats, and still another was occupied by an old Royal 440 typewriter. Bookshelves seemed divided between psychiatric texts and anthologies of American literature and poetry.

John took a cane chair right of the desk. Beside him was a table on which rested a queer aluminum ashtray stuffed with butts. His nostrils constricted at the tinge of tar.

The psychiatric chief seemed to materialize rather than enter. Dr. Herman stood slender and statuesque and too striking to be a man of this trade. Fine lines composed his face; his hair was dark, modestly styled, and only traceably gray. He reminded John of someone who might be in a Shakespearean troupe, or a historical society.

“Ah,” Dr. Herman said. “You must be John, from upstairs.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please bear with us. I realize how anxious you must be, but I’m afraid it’s hospital policy that you be interviewed by me before release. I suppose that might seem odd, that such a requirement be meted out by a doctor you’ve never met.”

“Yes, sir,” John said.

“Though my main function here revolves around the out-patient clinic, ward-patient release requires my final authorization, since I am also the administrative chief of the psychiatric branch.”

John didn’t care. He watched Herman sit down and thought how out of place the doctor appeared behind the cluttered desk. It was almost as if the office didn’t belong to Herman at all, but to another doctor.

Dr. Herman placed a hand on a closed folder of papers, what John presumed were his own medical records and psychiatric history. The folder was very thick. “I read over your case earlier,” Herman said. He was sitting erect in the chair, as if uncomfortable. John suspected his face was what made the doctor uneasy. Herman went on. “Most extraordinary. How do you plan to deal with it?”

From afar he heard a sudden, heavy pounding, construction workers on the roof. “Sir?”

“I mean, now that it’s over, how are you going to commence with your life?”

“I’m going to forget it all now,” John lied. “Leave it all behind.”

“Pretend it never happened, in other words.”

“Yes.” It amused John how hard Herman tried not to look at him.

The doctor let a pause hang in the air. “You’re cured now, John. I admit that’s a crude term in this instance, but we view psychiatric illness the way a dermatologist might view a rash. Treatments are applied, and the rash clears. Hence, the original affliction is no longer evident. Many patients pending release hesitate to be honest with me because they believe that I have the power to detain them at the last minute, should my opinion differ with those of the ward doctors. This is not at all true, please understand that. You can get up and run out of this hospital right now, and there’s nothing I could do to stop you. My final authorization is simply to make sure you’ve been out-processed properly. Therefore, you can speak honestly with me. You will do that, won’t you?”

“Of course,” John said. He had to smile; Herman’s entire monologue seemed painfully rehearsed.

“Tell me then, the incident which brought you here is a very strange account.” He glanced briefly at the folder. “Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

The pounding from the roof grew louder, pile-driving thuds that seemed to rock the superstructure of the building. Neither of them acknowledged it. Herman said, “Yet, it is your account. It’s something that you, at one time, believed most persistently, am I right?”

“Yes…”

Another pause. This time Herman looked John directly in the eye, and asked, “John, do you believe any of it now?”

“No,” John lied. He’d learned the futility of this truth, he’d learned well. “No,” he said again.

“Not even a little bit of it?”

John shook his head. He felt interrogated, but now it was his turn to deliver rehearsed lines. “When I think about that period of my life, I… I can’t believe it happened to me. What’s more, I can’t believe that I believed it, if you know what I mean. It’s more like a dream. Or recalling a dream you once had long ago. It’s a well-engineered dream, but it’s distanced enough to see through, to detect the parts that don’t fit. It’s like having a fever for a week, and when you think about it later, the whole week seems unreal.”

“What we in the business colloquially refer to as the inverted telescope syndrome… But the fever, in your case, was a bit longer than a week.”

“Right.”

Now Dr. Herman relaxed. He folded his hands in his lap and actually leaned back in the chair. “I’m sure you’ll do well on the outside, John. No discipline problems, no memos, you went through the acclimation program with flying colors. Almost like…”

Almost like there was nothing wrong with me to begin with, John finished in thought. “It was a milk run.”

“So then, what are your plans for the future?”

“It’s weird, but I really haven’t given it that much thought. Won’t have to worry about money, at least, but I don’t plan on just sitting around living off my disability, if that’s what you mean. I’ll take a few weeks to get settled, then start looking for work.”

Herman nodded approvingly. “And how do you feel? How do you feel right now as we speak?”

“Pretty good,” John said. He felt numb. “I know it’ll take some adjusting, with my face the way it is, but I don’t anticipate any problems. I’ve always been pretty much on my own; my face doesn’t bother me. If I’d lost an arm or a leg, then I guess that’d be different. The way I see it, I’m lucky to be alive. So my face got screwed up? Sure, it would be nice to have it back, but I’d rather be ugly and on the street than good-looking in a pine box.”

“An admirable attitude. And how do you feel about your release? Generally speaking, I mean.”

“Great. No offense to your setup here, but I’m happy as hell to be finally getting out.”

Herman leaned forward to raise a finger. “Not just that you’re getting out, but that you’re getting out healthy. That’s the important thing.”